7 Valuable Tips To Be A More Effective Online Assistant

7 Valuable Tips To Be A More Effective Online Assistant

Working from home or being an online assistant is a more convenient way to earn a living. An online assistant is a person who works using his/her own computer and internet connection to communicate with people he/she works with. A worker who doesn’t need to commute every single day just to reach the office and face everyday pollution, stress & traffic.

The first time I heard about remote employees, I had a lot of questions. I initially didn’t get what kind of job it is all about. But someone close to me frequently talks about the convenience of being a part of the outsourcing services industry. And yes! I love being a remote worker, earning while taking care of my four year old daughter.

Now, a lot of people ask me the same questions that I had before. And I always say that I have the best kind of work so I do my best to be successful in it.

There are lots of things to consider in order to be a happy and flourishing remote employee, but here are basic ones.

Tip #1

Make sure your online presence is accurate. If you’re online on IM, you should really be there. If you’re away from your desk, put up your away message or sign off. You should be almost as easy to reach as people in the office.

Tip #2

Call in 5 minutes early to every meeting. When people join a conference call, you should always already be there, on the call, ready to go. You want people to react this way about you, “Of course Rachel’s there. She’s always there.” With Skype, this translates simply to, “Answer the moment they call.” With Google Hangouts, it applies directly — be the first one to join.

Tip #3

Speak up on calls. Make your presence known and heard. If you never have anything to say, why are you there?

Tip #4

If you can’t hear them, tell them so. If what people are saying has any importance, you should be able to hear it. Same goes for seeing on video calls. If you can’t see what’s being discussed, try to get it remedied.

Tip #5

Be productive. If there’s ever a question that you’re not getting your work done as expected, you’ll be the low-hanging fruit precisely because you’re a remote employee. I survived layoff rounds practically every 6 months for years. I was never concerned, because I knew I always delivered.

Tip #6

Make your core hours match the company’s core hours. This isn’t always possible, depending on the time difference, but you should strive to achieve at least 3 or 4 hours of overlap. When I worked with a QA group in India for a time, where the time difference was 12.5 hours, we all adjusted our work hours so we could achieve a 3-hour overlap. Before we did that, question-and-answer cycles often took literally 2 days. To answer one question!

Tip #7

Figure out what you need others to do differently. You may need to make people aware that working with remote employees may take some work on their part as well. They may need to be reminded to take extra time to think, “Does Rachel need to know about this decision we just made while brewing coffee?” If you are invited to a meeting, is there a call-in number set up? If Skype, who is calling whom?

Remote employees will only continue to be more prevalent as companies embrace technology to meet the needs of younger workers used to the mobility and freedom gadgets and the internet can deliver.